Troy board OKs converting church into apartments

Some neighbors dislike proposed project

TROY, N.Y. >> Many Hillside residents came out to Tuesday night’s city Zoning Board of Appeals meeting to oppose a project that would transform a former church on 9th Street into apartments.

However, after hearing from many residents opposing the development, the five members of the zoning board approved the apartments’ project variances with a 3-2 vote.

Michael Ginsberg, an attorney with Pattison Sampson Ginsberg in Troy, is planning to purchase the former United Armenian Calvary Congregation Church at 144 9th Street and plans to transform the vacant church building into eight apartments, even though residents didn’t want a zoning variance granted that would allow Ginsberg to have the eight apartments in a neighborhood of single-family and two-family homes.

According to documents filed by Ginsberg to the zoning board, the proposed eight apartments would have up to 27 tenants bedrooms with 13 parking spaces and the project for the 8,000 square-foot building would cost over $1 million.

Last month, the zoning board voted 2-2 on the project, but Tuesday night’s meeting included new member Gary Pavlic, who is a former Rensselaer County Legislator and recently lost as the Democratic candidate for the Troy City Council President race.

Ginsberg said that he has adjusted his plans from his original proposal so that it would not include as many bedrooms and tenants.

“[This] is approximately a 50 percent reduction from what are original proposal was with now 27 tenants as opposed to when we asked for I believe 48 initially, it’s going to be configured with one, three and four bedroom units and we intend to have a property manager on site,” said Ginsberg to the board Tuesday night. We don’t believe that there is a significant traffic issue on 9th Street.”

During a public comment portion of the meeting several Hillside residents and attorney’s representing them spoke against the proposal prior to the board approving it.

“My position members of the board is that there hasn’t been any sufficient evidence produced in either of these applications including tonight to show the economic analysis that is required,” said Victor Caponera of Caponera Law Firm P.C. in Albany.

One resident brought up how last week the City Council decided to not sell a piece of property on 10th Street for apartments since the zoning for that neighborhood only calls for single-family or two-family homes and not apartments and she called on the zoning board to do the same as the City Council for this 9th Street project.

“Last Thursday night we, many of these people in this room, came before the City Council and argued against a proposal to see 168 10th St. to Sequence Development for a nine unit development,…. [the City Council] a said yes that we acknowledge that this is a neighborhood that deserves the zoning that it has,” said 10th Street resident Amy Halloran, who then asked community members in attendance to raise their hands in opposition and 19 people opposed the project.

On Thursday afternoon, Troy City Council President Carmella Mantello stated in an email that, “a review of Section 285-31 C of the city code states that a variance from the Zoning Board require the concurrence of four members of the board,” she said in the email. “It would appear based on the published report that only three of the five members of the Zoning Board concurred with granting the variance, and therefore, it apparently did NOT pass.”

Residents said that they have heard of people being interested in the church building for artists seeking living and studio space instead.

Although many of the residents in attendance opposed the project development at the church, Troy resident Emily Menn, who is neighbors with Ginsberg law firm, said that they have been excellent neighbors.

“They are excellent at communicating, they maintain their property beautifully…. This neighborhood would benefit from this partnership,” explained Menn during the meeting.

Before voting yes on the project, newcomer Pavlic said that he voted to approve the project since he believes that this particular neighborhood could use more development and residents. Pavlic also noted how he was afraid that if this project didn’t go through the vacant church build would just continue to deteriorate and then it would end up costing the city money to knock it down.

“I campaigned [in this neighborhood] a lot during last election and I found that it was a very quiet neighborhood, but disturbingly quiet to me, I had a difficult time at night and I didn’t feel very comfortable on the streets there because there wasn’t a lot of people,” explained Pavlic.